Further restrictions lifted at waste and recycling centres

The Council’s waste team is delighted to announce a significant step forward in a “return to normality” at the county’s waste and recycling centres.

The lifting of further Scottish Government restrictions announced today, Tuesday 3 August, has led to the move which will see:

• Hatston, Garson and Bossack revert to standard summer opening hours as of Tuesday 10 August.
• The remaining material restrictions at Bossack will also be removed. This means the East Mainland site will be able to accept cans, glass, paper, garden waste, household batteries, scrap metal, vehicle batteries, waste electrical equipment, cardboard, waste oil, fluorescent tubes, plastic bottles and cooking oil.
• Dounby recycling point will reopen on Monday 16 August – slightly delayed to allow all measures to be correctly put in place.

Vice-Chair of the Council’s Development and Infrastructure Committee, Councillor Andrew Drever said: “This is a very welcome step on the road to recovery and our return to normality. We appreciate how frustrating the Government restrictions have been which have prevented the usual way of working, so hopefully this further lifting of restrictions will be received with open arms.

“The restrictions have been as frustrating for our waste and recycling teams who are keen to get back to a more normal way of doing business, but they were in place for a very important reason and that was to keep our staff and you, the public, as safe as possible.

“I’m delighted at how swiftly the waste and recycling teams have acted to ensure a return to the more recognised way of working is in place as quickly as possible. We do ask householders to be patient as we restart these services as there may be some short-term operational issues that temporarily impact delivery from time to time.”

The reason this can happen now is two-fold. The First Minister announced the lifting of 2m physical distancing in outdoor settings from 9 August and secondly, the waste team have, for the past month, trialled complete self-management for visitors, with no operator intervention, and it has been working well. This means that visitors to the site will be expected to follow any signage and manage their own behaviour with no intervention from operatives.

Work is progressing on the resumption of special collections on the Mainland and the reopening of bring sites – we hope to be able to make an announcement on start dates soon.

The standard summer hours will be:

• Hatston and Garson: Tuesday to Friday 11am -6.45pm, weekends 9.30am – 4.45pm.
• Bossack: Tuesday to Friday 11am – 6.45pm.

St Margaret’s Hope and Cursiter are already on the summer hours timetable which is Monday-Friday 11am-6.45pm and weekends 9.30am-4.45pm at the ‘Hope and Monday to Thursday 8am-3.45pm and Friday 8am til 3.15pm at Cursiter.

Unfortunately, no sites are able to accept textiles as this is dependent on a third-party organisation who have not yet resumed their collection service.